


Midnight Special at Takodana

by ElegyGoldsmith



Series: Breaking Rey [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BDSM, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Dark, Dom/sub, Dominant Kylo Ren, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fifty Shades of Reylo, Jealousy, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Power Imbalance, Reylo Week, Smut, Stalking, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 22:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15129119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegyGoldsmith/pseuds/ElegyGoldsmith
Summary: The girl wasn’t part of Kylo’s briefing. Whoever she is, no one from his team expected her to be here tonight, either — and yet she’s completely tunnel-visioned, oblivious to the splendor and peril of Maz’s underground bar.The impulse to put her over his lap and spank her into paying attention is knee-jerk, but he shakes it aside as his cock starts to stiffen. Smile or no smile, this isn’t the time or the place for such thoughts.Written for July Reylo Week 2018 as part ofCraving Kylo! We've seen things from Rey's perspectives, now it's time for a look inside the dark and patient mind of Kylo Ren...





	Midnight Special at Takodana

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Craving Kylo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14951468) by [ElegyGoldsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegyGoldsmith/pseuds/ElegyGoldsmith). 



> Dropping this early because it's Sunday afternoon and I'm really excited for Reylo Week 2018 (the second one, I think? First one I'm participating in!), so I can't wait! This is part one of a seven-part series responding to the prompts. Still not sure if I'm going to be able to post them all day-of, but whatever happens, it should be a Reylo-tastic series of days yet to come ^-^
> 
> Also, shamelessly stealing the phrase "Lantern Slides" from Philip Pullman and _His Dark Materials_. These are each going to be kinda shorter than the Craving Kylo stories, and told from Kylo's perspective as he first becomes aware of Rey and starts things in motion to draw her into his life... ;)

Emerald light shines off the lip of Kylo’s glass, making the smoke erupting from the liquid within it look all the more impressive. The rim of black sugar sparkles like diamonds, and it sweetens his tongue, countering the tequila’s salty bite. Tart berry juice and dry ice are the only other ingredients he’s been able to identify so far — but then, like most people who come to Takodana, he’s not here for the cocktails.

He lifts his head, looking around the underground bar freely enough behind tinted glasses. Thumping music jitters through his bones as he surveys those nearest to him, waiting. Even now he’s amazed by the way so many others live their lives in blinkered lanes, ignorant to what’s going on around them. Statistically speaking, at least  _ some _ of the people in this bar should recognize him — or might at least seem aware that they themselves are being watched.Yet he and each of the five members of his security detail scattered throughout the shadowy joint are perfectly unobtrusive. Their collective net is cast and waiting to be drawn tight should the need for more than observation arise.

Kylo turns his head, pretending to admire the brassy steampunk accents adorning the walls, the electric tubes of green light coiling along the walls like untamed tendrils. The behavior is just a pretense, helping him blend in as he brings up the feed of his team’s cameras on his digital glasses, flicking through the views until he has a clear angle on the door.

Takodana is busy for midnight on a Tuesday, and though Kylo detests crowds he doesn’t have long to wait. Poe Dameron saunters into the bar well within his predicted window of arrival, and the Organa-Solo Foundation recruiter’s twin companions trail in his wake like disoriented ghosts. Finn and Rose, the briefing documents named them. This must be the duo’s first time to Maz’s lush hideaway; renowned as it is for being a sort of neutral zone amid this war zone of a city, they can barely stop themselves from gaping and whispering to each other as they glance around.

Kylo frowns as a fourth figure, a straggler, shoulders through the door after the others. She’s walking blindly, tapping furiously at her phone — but as she blunders into a pair of surly-faced strangers, the apologetic smile she offers them is so sweet that his heart staggers.

“Table for four it is,” someone murmurs over the group commlink, acknowledging the intruder’s presence.

Kylo’s been watching Poe for long enough to know how he works, drawing in prey in ones or twos, baiting strays into the OSF’s fold with his reckless charm. He offers them a chance to be a rebel, casting Kylo himself as some dark enchanter, KoR Technology as a savage kingdom in contrast to the OSF’s utopic vision for the world. It’s flattering. But either Poe’s getting more ambitious and overreaching himself, or this stony-faced girl with the brilliant grin wasn’t part of his plan tonight.

Kylo read Finn’s file on his way over to tonight’s op, and it’s a frustratingly familiar story: a promising future in Snoke Industries’ R&D division shattered as the OSF gradually radicalized the young researcher. Rose is a lucky get for Poe; even though she and Finn had only been coworkers a few months by the time he quit, they’d already grown close. She turned in her own resignation by the end of his last day, swayed by Finn’s peer pressure. Two for one.

But the girl wasn’t part of Kylo’s briefing. Whoever she is, no one from his team expected her to be here tonight, either — and yet she’s completely tunnel-visioned, oblivious to the splendor and peril of Maz’s underground bar.

The impulse to put her over his lap and spank her into paying attention is knee-jerk, but he shakes it aside as his cock starts to stiffen. Smile or no smile, this isn’t the time or the place for such thoughts.

The new recruits slide into a booth on the far side of the room, making a good show of scouting around for eavesdroppers. Kylo snorts with quiet laughter. Like that'll help. To any onlooker he’s simply staring at the back of the bar, nursing tonight’s midnight special, while in reality he’s watching them from twenty different perspectives. Correction: while he's watching the distracted young woman fumble her way into the seat alongside them.

Her companions glare at her, but she only murmurs something inaudible — an apology? — refusing to tear her eyes from the palm-sized screen before her as she sits down. Kylo squints at the too-small image of her displayed in his glasses. She’s pretty, but that’s not the entirety of it. There’s a fierceness to her gaze, an intensity about her countenance that hints at deeper intelligence like a spark in the depths of night.

What the hell’s she doing? Not knowing is strangely bothering him.

If it’s a game she’s playing it must be a puzzle, because every minute or so she lowers the phone a bit, chewing her lower lip as she scowls off into space. Then she goes back to it, swiping and tapping as the three others continue to chatter amongst themselves. What could be so addictive that even a first visit to Takodana pales in comparison?

Try as he might to focus on the reason he’s really here, Kylo has to keep actively reminding himself to pay attention to the trio of doe-eyed co-conspirators. They’re not really talking about anything of substance, just trading rumors about KoR Technology as a way of strengthening the social bonds between them. He rolls his eyes. Humans can be so primitive. Their conversation is the equivalent of comparing shiny objects, cooing over them as they flash in the sunlight. People like these are why Kylo doesn’t make friends. Not the human kind, anyway. Listening in on them is dull work.

Knowing he’s superfluous to the success of his own reconnaissance mission doesn’t help — anything important will come up at the debriefing — and he finds his gaze sliding to the focused young woman again, wishing she’d speak so he could hear what her voice sounds like.

“Another?”

Kylo clears his digispecs with a blink. To his surprise, the cocktail glass stands empty and smoking before him. Its contents disappeared too quickly — and he shakes his head at the bartender. “Club soda and lime. And close my tab.”

He hopes he downed the drink so fast because he was distracted watching the girl, not because that particular vice is rearing its ugly head again. It seems unlikely after so many years; that stint in rehab stuck with him. Still, it’s an excuse to sign the receipt and move away from the lacquered wooden bar while his head’s still clear.

Kylo casually turns and glances toward the booth his security team is surveilling. Poe’s fully into his pro-OSF lecture, his finger pointed at the end of an accusingly lashing arm. His cheeks are ruddy with righteous anger, and Finn and Rose gaze at him, twin caricatures of rapture. Only Kylo’s quarry might see him if he changes position, and she’s still thoroughly lost in her own universe.

The booth closest to her side of the bench is open. He crosses the room and slides into it smoothly, relief cooling his veins as he confirms he didn’t disturb Takodana’s delicate equilibrium by drawing attention to himself.

The girl’s uplink to whatever she’s doing is barely encrypted. Tapping into the information exchange is but the work of a few pressed buttons, and then the data stream unfurls in his digispecs like a rain-swollen river. 

Kylo blinks dumbly at the mirror of her screen. She’s not playing some game, she’s using her phone as a thin client, writing program code in a distant server. It’s the sort of thing  _ he _ used to do, whenever his parents dragged out to some stupid event or other and then ignored him once the cameras turned away.

“Rey. She’s Finn’s housemate,” K-2SO supplies in his discreet earpiece, having mined her name from somewhere in KoR Tech’s databases. “Though don’t ask me to extrapolate why you didn’t simply tell someone to drop another bug over here rather than walking all the way across the room yourself.”

“That’s enough,” Kylo murmurs quietly — but he knows the AI system’s heard him, because a melodramatic sigh slides over the private commlink. The truth isn’t something a robotic assistant would understand, even one as complex and adaptive as K-2SO. Kylo wants to hear her voice for himself, not some version of it that’s frosted with electronic static.

“Hey.” The furious data stream ebbs, and the booth shakes as Rey repositions herself somewhere beyond the divider behind him. Her giggles send reverberations through the solid wood of Kylo’s own backrest. Her voice is lower than he was expecting, and there’s a clear musicality to her words, like a struck bell. “Finn, you’ve got to check this out.”

“Not now, Rey.”

“It’ll just take a second, I promise.”

An exasperated sigh rises from the booth behind Kylo, and for a moment he thinks it’s K-2SO again, injecting himself into Kylo's earpiece. Then Finn mutters, “Fine.”

“See?” Rey giggles into the ensuing silence.

“It’s … cool.”

Did he miss something? Kylo’s forehead tightens as he frowns, and his leather gloves squeak reproachfully against the glass of club soda.  _ Control _ . Frustrated by this little mystery as he is, he needs to stay hidden. If the wrong set of eyes blows his cover,  _ all _ of these invisible little operations under Maz’s nose will be shot to hell.

“ _ Cool? _ ” Rey demands. “It’s AR — and I wrote it!  _ I _ did that!”

Finn’s voice is tight with self-righteousness. “Good for you, dude, I’m really happy for you — but this  _ so  _ isn't the time.”

“Do you realize what we're trying to do here, Rey?” Poe demands. His disdain toward her for daring to interrupt his spiel makes Kylo’s stomach burn. “This is serious stuff.  _ Real _ stuff. We're talking about a fight for Seattle's soul here, and you're playing around with videogames like some kid.”

“Thanks, Poe,” Rey says airily, but a pang of genuine hurt lurks beneath her tone like a sliver of ice.

Kylo swipes a snapshot of the code she’s just finished and taps the frame of his glasses, compiling it for a quick look. From the outside his lenses are still opaque black, sunglasses at night, but from his perspective the ominous bar has suddenly become filled with tiny, ridiculous creatures. They look like penguins and harp seals mated to produce diabolically adorable offspring — and their improbably tiny fangs slay him.

He snorts with sudden laughter, unable to repress the wellspring of mirth that bubbles up in him as he watches the damn things hopping around and bonking into each other in their skidding attempts to fly. They’re only wireframes models, but he can envision them clearly enough, and they seem programmed into interact with surfaces but not people. A simple augmented reality program, but promising. If she’s written this code herself it’s damn impressive.

A harsh clatter of laughter from over his shoulder makes him wince. Poe’s gotten a couple of drinks into Finn and Rose, and their merriment is raucous with intoxication. 

Primal anger ripples through Kylo as he gazes around, watching the half-designed creatures flop about on Maz’s tabletops, respecting the laws of physics so perfectly that he can almost believe they’re real. This expression of it is silly, but the kind of mind it takes to program such an advanced simulation is a truly extraordinary one. Finding her here is like finding a raw diamond in a junkyard glove box.

His fingers twitch, threatening to betray him as bloodred rage simmers higher in his chest. Rey might be an afterthought to Poe at the moment, overlooked in his haste to draw in the duo of Finn and Rose, but if she stays close to Finn the OSF will invariably get their hooks into her, too. They’ll turn her into a weapon.

_ If _ .

For a moment, hope flares within him. He could save her.

But no … the thought fades to ashen disappointment as soon as he considers it properly. He’s a creature of darkness, not a white knight. He can’t save anyone. Not like that. Not when his definition of  _ safe _ is such a far cry from something a girl like her must need — and he can’t pretend to be someone he isn’t. He did that for too many years.

Kylo’s already spent too much time thinking about her tonight, Rey. Too much thinking leads to attachment. Attachment leads to pain — the bad kind. Time to walk away.

The team takes muttering note of his departure as he heads for Takodana’s front door, but it doesn’t disturb them. Though they’re on his payroll he was only ever their guest, and they know better than to question him unless it’s truly important. He’s got some portfolios to review yet tonight, potential acquisitions to mull over. He can’t be distracted from the game of chess that his life’s become.

Edmond Dantès never faltered. Neither will Kylo.

He’s almost out the door when the needle-sharp voice finds him. “Do you remember what I told you the last time you trashed this place?”

More than five years later, it hasn’t left him — and he gazes coolly down at the old woman as he turns. Maz is just as he remembers. A little grayer at the temples, perhaps, and even shorter than he recalls, but her black eyes gleam beadily at him from behind oversized glasses, unchanged by time. “You told me Kylo Ren wasn’t welcome, but Ben Solo could come back as soon as he was ready.”

She squints at him, as though that’ll somehow help her see into his soul. “And who’s standing here with me today?”

“No one.” He’s not going to let himself get sucked into her mind game. “And someone who’s invisible can’t cause you any trouble.”

She  _ hmmphs _ at him. “Not causing trouble isn’t in your nature.”

His detail has noticed what’s happening here, and Phasma’s no doubt somewhere on the street outside, itching to get involved — but he discreetly shakes his head, ordering them all to stand down. The ancient woman has a hair across her ass about something, and he wants to know what. “Let’s stop pretending tonight’s my first visit back here since the old days. Why now, tonight? Why not confront me on any of those other nights I’ve been here?”

“You’re tipping your hand, Kylo,” Maz hisses, like saying his name burns her tongue. She steps closer, amusingly unintimidated by his height. “I don’t know who that girl is or what you want with her, but you’ll leave her alone when you’re under my roof.”

He feigns mild outrage. Not that she’ll buy the act, of course, but it’s the civil thing to do. “I don’t know what you mean, Maz.”

“She comes from nothing. She’s nothing to you.”

His blood bubbles in his veins, pulse roaring in his ears as he glares down at the old woman. He wishes he could burn her to dust where she stands. She’s so quick to write Rey off, just like Finn.

Jesus. Has  _ everyone _ in her life been like this? So far the people he’s seen be kindest to her were the ones she banged into walking through the door. It shouldn’t get to him, but it does — and he glances at Rey again. That’s all he has of her: the memory of her face, the fact that she’s Finn’s housemate, and her name.  _ Rey _ . 

_ You’ll leave her alone while you’re under my roof. _

It’s a good thing Maz’s roof is tiny, and the world is such a big place.

“We’ll see about that,” Kylo tells Maz quietly, letting his anger fade to ice once again. He brings up Rey’s program in his digispecs as he makes his way out of the bar and into the cool night air, and fleeting echoes of her laughter ring in his ears as he scans through the lines of her code.

**Author's Note:**

> Kylo Ren is a bad, bad man - but he doesn't give Rey much thought until a night soon after he sees first her in Takodana. A night when he gets a closer look at her sheltered life, and his obsession with her deepens...
> 
> (P.S. Midnight Special? Geddit??)
> 
> More chapters of _Craving Kylo _and more lantern slides soon to come!__
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _THANKS FOR READING!!!_  
>  _
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _< 3__  
> 


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